Burger King admits to horse meat in their burgers, but says they were never sold in restaurants

Burger King UK admits that horse meat was found on their burgers, but clarified that they were never sold in their restaurants. The announcement comes a week after the British food chain dropped Silvercrest Foods as their meat supplier, which went under investigation by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI).

Burger King logoImage Credit: BurgerKing.co.uk

According to a press release at BurgerKing.co.uk on Thursday, January 31, 2013, the food chain launched their own internal investigation on Silvercrest, including scientific testing and inspection of their facility, as well verifying its history records. This is despite the fact that they was assured that they did deliver horse meat to them.

As noted in the report, Silvercrest has been their 100% supplier of Irish and British beef patties in the UK, Ireland, and Denmark, which they have been serving in their restaurants. But since Silvercrest was included in the horse meat controversy, Burger King replaced them with another supplier on Friday, January 23.

Nevertheless, Burger King noted that “our independent DNA tests results on product taken from Burger King restaurants were negative for any equine (horse) DNA. However, four samples recently taken from the Silvercrest plant have shown the presence of very small trace levels of equine DNA. This product was never sold to our restaurants.”

“Within the last 36 hours, we have established that Silvercrest used a small percentage of beef imported from a non-approved supplier in Poland. They promised to deliver 100% British & Irish beef patties and have not done so. This is a clear violation of our specifications, and we have terminated our relationship with them.” Burger King added.

“While the Food Safety Authority of Ireland has stated that this is not a food safety issue, we are deeply troubled by the findings of our investigation and apologize to our guests, who trust us to source only the highest quality 100% beef burgers.” Diego Beamonte, VP of Global Quality, Burger King Corporation, was quoted at BurgerKing.co.uk.

“Our supplier has failed us and in turn we have failed you. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen again. We remain committed to identifying suppliers that can produce 100% pure Irish and British beef products for us that meet our high quality standards.” Beamonte added.